Quote:Ok, This isn't about ki balls or anything. I've started to medtiate about 2 months ago, since I want to better myself. I did Teakwondo for a while, but it lacked meditation and softer things that I wanted to do. I wanted to know more about what chi was actually about since the one inch punch looked interested and I doubt its authenticity- including brick bashing and things. So i just wanted to know: What can you do with it once you've developed chi?

The one-inch punch was nothing more than a demonstration by Bruce Lee. The distance for which the one-inch punch travels is very short (one inch). Punches that travel that short usually don't have that much power due to the difficulty in putting your body into it. Bruce Lee demonstrated how he was able to place his whole body behind that punch. It had nothing to do with chi.

Anyway, what can you do with chi once you've developed it? Absolutely nothing. Chi is formless and confined within your body. Trying to use it as a weapon is like trying to use a cloud as a sword. In my opinion, you cannot develop your chi, you can only give it freedom of movement throughout your body by removing anything that would block it. This includes thoughts, desires, intentions, etcetera. It's no different than your mind.

Your approaching it in completely the wrong direction and using terminology that both yourself and very few others understand. Simply learn how to deal with energy, receiving it and generating it. All martial arts do that. As Fisherman says, if you want to learn a MA builds a body/mind connection then look at arts he suggested. If you'd like to know what someone who doesn't have chi or energy is like goto a morgue. There you can see people devoid of energy, or Chi. This will produce the realization of "Wow, I already have {insert energetic terminology of your choice} now what shall I do with it?"

Too many people try intellectually understand an experience without ever having it. It's like putting the cart before the horse. Find a MA instructor who is skillful, become skilfull yourself and then attribute it to whichever school of thought you find easiest to understand. Some find scientific methods easier, others more metaphysical observations. At the end of the day it doesn't matter, skill is skill....build your skill and you Chi will take care of itself.

Quote:...or, when you do that, another way to think about it is normally imperceptable heat convection, blood circulation and muscle micro-contractions. usually we aren't aware of these subtle and barely detectable physics going on until we calm and quiet ourselves to observe it.

Good point. I wonder if learning to control those muscle micro-contractions might be a part of what "chi" is all about.

Quote:another is sitting in a very quiet area, and hearing the very faint high pitched 'white noise'. some could describe it as chi, some would explain it as the sound your inner ear is picking up of the subtle vibration from blood circulating the area.

Nah, I call that tinnitus

Personally, I believe in everything I don't understand I actually think there is _something_ to chi. Is it perfection of body mechanics? Maybe. Is it something else? Maybe. I've even heard it explained as proper use of your center of gravity in delivery of technique (that goes back to body mechanics). I'm fairly certain that it is not the moving of a bowl of water across a table (that's a magicians trick) or the rotating of a piece of foil in a "sealed" container. Which happens to be a published magicians trick.

My most interesting study of chi was with a reiki master. I never had much luck myself, but she did some pretty interesting things that I have yet to explain.

thats the nature of subjective and open-ended concepts - they are open to interpretation. pick your favorite one and run with it.

my sense is that if a concept interwoven with training doesn't help improve anything, then the concept runs the risk of becoming baggage thru pursuing the concept vs. pursuing the training. Same with chi-centric healing: if the chi concept methodology doesn't have better performance than non-chi methods, then why add the layer of abstraction to the 'cure'? I can see why people would want to SELL that layer, but sometimes have a hard time understanding why people would buy it. although, 'makes them feel better' is a good enough reason to keep it around.

Hmmm, Ed. You stuck your head in the radio again and didn't see any radio waves, so they must not exist, right?

Seriously, using chi (or ki) is a skill, just like anything else that's dependent on internal training methods and body mechanics. There are techniques that I do where the attacker is helpless to turn loose of me once they touch me, and it's not only a function of ki, but of body mechanics and the energy pattern of the technique. "Intrinsic energy" is pretty much useless until you make a connection with someone else, and then it can be both dynamic and mysterious in its effects.

We went through a multi-page discussion some time ago about this, and it was pretty clear that no matter how much you explain that if you don't believe in it, there's no proof, and if you do believe in it, there's every proof by the effects.

Explaining it through technique is something that you feel, and can be shown in the practice... but it's like the radio waves, just because you don't see them doesn't mean they aren't there. Just like mechanical attachments, you can produce different results by simply changing something as simple as pointing your finger or changing your hand shape when extending ki, so it would take volumes to put that into words and I'm not sure somebody skeptical would ever understand it until they felt it... and that's not a put down, but a phenomenan that is demonstratable but can't be adequately explained in words to ever convey its use.

I've been doing Aikido for 20+ years, and while I can show you, I still don't have an explanation of a lot of the phenomena of Aikido. Some of it is "muscle balance", some of it is "mechanical structure", some is "body position", some is "hand position"... elements that you would describe as "techniques", but not really technique in the classical sense. They are repeatable patterns of energy with predictable results, and the results go up exponentially with the addition of energy.

As for the healing side of chi, the entire TCM system is based on it, along with the science of acupuncture, and with the exception of herbal remedies, the treatments in TCM are mostly "chi" stimulations or remedies. Do they work?... apparently so, because Acupuncture clinics are popping up all over the place these days, and they are being used to treat everything from dyspepsia to cancer pain... so there must be something to the science as well.

I truly wish I could give you a definitive answer on the board, but I think that if you ever experience the dynamics of chi or ki, you'll understand better that it's kind of like butter... is doesn't do much for you unless it's applied to something.

_________________________
What man is a man that does not make the world a better place?... from "Kingdom of Heaven"

At the risk of infuriating Chi/Ki folk, is it possible that there is something akin to the placebo effect going on? If people believe in the process enough, there can be "real" effects to the practitioners.

_________________________"In case you ever wondered what it's like to be knocked out, it's like waking up from a nightmare only to discover it wasn't a dream." -Forrest Griffin

Quote:At the risk of infuriating Chi/Ki folk, is it possible that there is something akin to the placebo effect going on? If people believe in the process enough, there can be "real" effects to the practitioners.

I think that's part of it. I also think there is more to it than that. There is _something_ there, we just haven't all figured it out yet. My personal ideas on Ki/Chi are that it is a higher level of technique stemming from more perfect use of our mechanical bodies.

I've seen some interesting things done in a Reiki session that I can't explain.

I haven't seen any martial applications of an "external" form of ki/chi that can't be explained by trickery. That doesn't mean it isn't possible though.